Quantum leap: not as far as you think

About a year ago I was going nuts over the announcement of Mac OS X 10.6, aka Snow Leopard, for all the wrong reasons: the advertising.

Only Apple Inc. could hang a huge promotional banner declaring 0 New Features to thunderous, and legitimate, applause. Snow Leopard was about tightening all the bolts, spending a year's engineering resources on tuning and improving the invisible core of the operating system. Normally, this kind of effort is secondary to creating new user-focused features one can advertise.

Bold, Steve.

But there was one piece ofp romo work that threw me into paroxysms of ecstasy, featured here:

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The term quantum leap has been used plenty often in ad copy throughout the decades, always evoking a sense of advancement, of scientific innovation with lasers and clean rooms and, oh yes, crystals.

http://www.youtube.com/v/cf3bRXGmkJE&hl=en&fs=1

Also a pretty cool TV show starring Count Bakula of Star Trek Enterprise fame. But they were all terribly, terribly wrong.

Erwin Schrödinger teaches us (well, not him per se, but considering I just pimped his work in the Schrödinger's Litterbox piece I thought I'd call him back) that quantum jumps are electrons transitioning from one quantum state to another within an atom thruogh a brief period of superposition.

In other words, it's an infinitessimally small change, one that can't be directly observed by mere mortals.

Like a desktop operating system which offers almost no new user-facing features.

Bingo.

Oh man, I totally want one of these next to my pool. Also, I want a pool.

Looking good, feeling fine.

I dint take nearly enough photos. I've GOT the technology in my pocket, might as well put it to good use!

Bulletin of the Atomic Sciences 1982 Vol. 38, No....

via iloveoldmagazines.tumblr.com

Not your game, girl: Wing sings "Beat It" on NZ TV!

http://www.youtube.com/v/IoYrBdw-aDg&hl=en&fs=1

via youtube.com

Having known of the musical sensation Wing since before her fated South Park parody, I've always been at once smugly dismissive of her watery voice, poor pronunciation and frequent inability to keep time -- and deeply appreciative of her positivity and unbridled chutzpah.

Here she is in top form. Looking like she's been freshly beaten by her husband, still shaking, but nonetheless resplendent in her lovely dress, badass gloves and SHE-MULLET. She warbles on and off rhythm at whim!

You can't stop her! You don't have the SPINE.

Heathen City 3 proof copy arrived!

My proof copy of Heathen City 3 arrived, and it looks FANTASTIC. Behold!

(also, I'm cooking chicken tonight, don't judge me)

Schrödinger's Litterbox

In 1935, Austrian big-brain physicist Erwin Schrödinger developed a thought experiment that has since seeped into public awareness in recent decades because it's totally far out, man. Largely without complaint from animal rights groups, curiously.

 

The original thought experiment called for a steel box in which are placed a cat, a quantity of a radioactive substance, a Geiger counter, and a death trap. Originally the death trap was a vial of hydrocyanic acid that is triggered to spray in the box when the Geiger counter detects sufficient decay of the substance. Later versions of the story called for a shotgun to blast the box, which I actually think might be more humane.

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This hypothetical experiment illustrated the phenomenon of quantum superposition as described in the Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen paradox: without opening the steel box you can't know if the kittycat has been murdered by the acid, or if it's still happily snoozing.

 

What's totally far out, then, is that the cat is both alive and dead until the moment the box is opened. Only when the box is opened and its condition observed does the superposition collapse into one definite state, and at that point the cat becomes either alive or dead for real.

 

When I was told this story as a teenager, I was totally like whoa. The universe suddenly seemed just a little more magical and far out, and the complex relationship between observation and reality, which fascinated me already, became even more awesome. I imagine there are scads of bright minds out there, young and old, for which this story created a sense of wonder and awe.

 

It's sad to realize that this completely misses the point of the story. Schrödinger used this story to poke holes in the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics (and not to simply illustrate it) by inventing a situation that would produce superposition, but which is obviously nonsense. Cats obviously aren't both alive and dead. Trees that fall in the forest do make a sound, and bears shit in the woods all the time.

 

I know, it was a huge disappointment to me, too, when I learned this, but we owe it to ol' Erwin to recognize what he was trying to tell us. We weren't supposed to be totally like whoa, we were supposed to realize that cats are either alive or dead, and that therefore this superposition stuff was rather suspect.

 

The universe, alas, is perhaps a little less wondrous now. But take heart: this was in 1935. Much has been learned since then and with the construction of truly awe-inspiring machines like the Large Hadron Collider, more is being learned and supposed and debunked every day. There may be even more radical realities for us to marvel at.

 

I just hope they're not illustrated with lolcats.

Rocking Little Asian Drummer Boy

http://www.youtube.com/v/aJG9Tol1a0U&hl=en&fs=1

via youtube.com

By the middle of the song the kid is having SO much fun. And holy hell he's good. Look at him go! :)

The Not Writer - audio edition

Yowza, the time does fly! About a year ago I wrote a series of posts on the topic of the Not Writer which was quite well-received, and since I'd just bought a decent condenser microphone on a super cool hinge arm over my desk I immediately set about recording that seven-part series, edited it together... and, well, kind of forgot about it after that.

For your enjoyment, here's the full 30-minute reading of The Not Writer!

  
Download now or listen on posterous

The_Not_Writer.m4a (15155 KB)